As I started to write some of the material destined for future articles here
on Taming Email, it became apparent to me
that I was making a lot of assumptions about how email is organized and
structured. In order to avoid losing folks from the very start, a few
definitions of some of the basic concepts of email might well be in order, both
for now, and for reference later.

Based on the kinds of questions I get out on Ask Leo!, it’s clear that the differences between
email domains, accounts and addresses is one area of common confusion. Since
I’ll be relying heavily on some of those differences as I lay out my
recommending “taming tricks”, it’s worth a few minutes to go over exactly what
those are.

A lot of people understand domains, but the difference between an email
address and an email account? Not so much.